How to Budget for Giving All Year Long

By Laura Shin of LearnVest

For more on how to budget for giving throughout the year, visit LearnVest.com.

Study after study has demonstrated a truth summed up nicely in this quotation by General Peyton C. March:

“There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained by giving them to someone else.”

It’s so true (and ironic) that giving to others gives us a boost as well.

The bigger irony is that many of us forget to include giving in our budget. We probably feel our lack of planning most keenly at the end of the year when we are bombarded with requests that we would like to fulfill … but can’t. Or, when we are haphazardly responding to charity pleas without having an overall strategy.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. At LearnVest, we believe that charity should be a planned part of your budget and your schedule. After all, it helps others, and it enriches our lives in ways that we could never anticipate. Besides, using some forethought means we won’t just be giving to the causes that have the money and energy to knock on our doors but the ones that are nearest and dearest to our hearts.

If you are wondering how you’ll make extra room in an already tight budget, don’t fear. We’ve got all kinds of solutions—from giving time, money or technology you no longer use, to a bank that donates to a charity of your choice based on how much money you save.

Here is your guide to giving to charity all year long. Just add one (or several) of the following tips to your 2012 resolutions to make sure that by the time 2013 rolls around, you and others will have benefited from your foresight.